Piloting his 747, Rayford Steele is musing about his wife Irene's
irritating religiosity and contemplating the charms of his "drop-dead
gorgeous" flight attendant, Hattie. First Irene was into Amway, then
Tupperware, and now it's the Rapture of the Saints--the scary last story
in the Bible in which Christians are swept to heaven and unbelievers are
left behind to endure the Antichrist's Tribulation. Steele believes
he'll put the plane on autopilot and go visit Hattie. But Hattie's in a
panic: some of the passengers have disappeared! The Rapture has
happened, abruptly driverless cars are crashing all over, and the slick,
sinister Romanian Nicolae Carpathia plans to use the UN to establish one
world government and religion. Resembling "a young Robert Redford" and
silver-tongued in nine languages, Carpathia is named People's "Sexiest
Man Alive." (This reviewer, a former People writer, finds this plot
twist plausible.) Meanwhile, Steele teams up with Buck Williams, a
buck-the-system newshound, to form the Tribulation Force, an underground
of left-behind penitents battling the Antichrist. Ex-presidential
candidate Pat Robertson briefly outsold Michael Crichton with his
apocalypse novel The End of the Age (now available on audiocassette),
and the similar The Third Millennium sells well, but the Left Behind
series is the absolute champion in the race to make the Book of
Revelation into racy thriller reading. --Tim Appelo